http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7084-9726
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ABSTRACT
How do left- and right-leaning governments differ in their provision of foreign aid? As the case of Canada confirms, it is not clear that either type gives more aid or that they spend it significantly differently. This article examines the claim that Stephen Harper’s government played to its Conservative base and compares its record to that of Liberal governments. It finds that all governments over the past few decades have tried to brand their aid initiatives in ways that will appeal to their respective bases. These changes are based on domestic electoral considerations, rather than the needs and priorities of aid recipients, and are a distraction from and impediment to aid effectiveness considerations. In spite of their rhetorical differences, successive governments actually exhibit great continuity in their aid programs, regardless of which party is in power.
RÉSUMÉ
Comment les gouvernements de gauche et de droite diffèrent-ils dans la fourniture de l’aide au développement ? Comme le confirme le cas du Canada, il n’est pas certain que l’un ou l’autre octroie davantage d’aide ou qu’ils la dépensent de façon sensiblement différente. Cet article examine l’affirmation selon laquelle les politiques du gouvernement Harper ont visé sa base électorale conservatrice et compare ses pratiques à celles des Libéraux. Il constate que tous les gouvernements au cours des dernières décennies ont essayé de présenter leurs initiatives d’aide de manière à faire appel à leur base respective. Ces changements sont fondés sur des considérations électorales nationales, plutôt que sur les besoins et les priorités des bénéficiaires de l’aide, et constituent une distraction et une entrave à l’efficacité de l’aide. En dépit de leurs différences rhétoriques, les gouvernements font preuve d’une grande continuité dans leur programme d’aide, quel que soit le parti au pouvoir.
Acknowledgements
The author is very grateful to the three institutions that hosted him during the various stages of researching and writing this article: the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Advanced Studies and International Development Department, and the Institut d’étude du développement économique et social at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He received helpful suggestions from participants at the workshop on “The Domestic Dimensions of Development Cooperation,” held at the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Belgium, 24–25 October 2016, especially from Jörg Faust, as well as from Richard Nimijean, David Carment, Megan Pickup, Stéphanie Bacher and two anonymous reviewers. He also thanks Dane Degenstein for research assistance, and apologizes to Meghan Trainor for the article’s title.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Stephen Brown is professor of political science at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of numerous publications on foreign aid, especially Canada’s. More information is available at www.stephenbrown.xyz.
ORCID
Stephen Brown http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7084-9726
Notes
1 It is important to note that these are labels that the Trudeau government applies to its own policies. The extent to which they are accurate is rather debatable. See, for instance, Vucetic (Citation2017).
2 It is not clear why the two government ministers stated that contraception would be excluded – whether that was actually the government’s initial intention or whether the ministers simply confused contraception with abortion.
3 To be fair, given the long lead-time between project identification and announcement, most projects announced to date were originally designed under the previous government. It is all the more striking, however, that the Trudeau government has nonetheless framed these project announcements under the FIAP brand since June 2017, which demonstrates how rhetorical differences can be much more significant than substantive ones. A systematic comparison of concrete differences between projects developed before and after the FIAP’s adoption would be an important topic for future research. Swiss (Citation2018) outlines three strategies that the government could adopt to meet the target of 95 per cent of aid to focus on women, girls and gender equality, highlighting the constraints imposed by a lack of new resources under what he terms “miserly feminism.”
4 In 2015–2016, for instance, Ukraine was the top recipient of Canadian aid, having received 3.3 per cent of total ODA, while Haiti ranked seventh, at 1.7 per cent (OECD Citation2018a).
5 The same can be said about the shifting of official priority themes, areas or sectors every few years, which is more about branding than about responding to changing needs. See discussion in Brown (Citation2015a).
6 These figures were calculated using data from OECD (Citation2018b).
7 The government took care to specify that the CAD$1.5 billion will not come from the additional $2 billion, but rather “from existing unallocated International Assistance Envelope resources” (Canada Citation2018, p. 159). However, given the fungibility of funds, it is not clear that this distinction is meaningful.